


Where Can I Take You

by AJfanfic



Series: Snow and Dirty Rain [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: 1970s, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, Fem!Geralt - Freeform, Fem!Jaskier, Found Family, Geraskier Week, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Running Away, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Jaskier | Dandelion, These two are not related, everyone's a lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22747939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJfanfic/pseuds/AJfanfic
Summary: There is a kid sitting in Geralt’s seat at the bar. She’s swallowed up by an overlarge men’s coat and her dirty blonde hair, the color of snow in the sun. She’d be lovely if not for the black eye, delicate if not for the bruised knuckles. Geralt slides onto the seat next to her.Ciri is a baby butch runaway with no place to go. Geralt and Jaskier offer her a place.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Snow and Dirty Rain [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633876
Comments: 29
Kudos: 231





	Where Can I Take You

_ I’ll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? _

_ \- Richard Siken _

There is a kid sitting in Geralt’s seat at the bar. She’s swallowed up by an overlarge men’s coat and her dirty blonde hair, the color of snow in the sun. She’d be lovely if not for the black eye, delicate if not for the bruised knuckles. Geralt slides onto the seat next to her.

“Beer for me, and the kid.”

Triss raises an eyebrow. “Really Ger? She’s like, eight.”

Geralt raises her eyebrow too and waits. Triss passes them two glasses. The kid is staring.

“Go on. I’ll drink it if you don’t want it.”

She grabs the glass. Geralt has never been one to start conversations, and it seems the kid isn’t either, so they sit for a while in silence. Her shoulders lower by degree, looking less like a bird ready to leap from a branch.

“Thank you.” Her voice is soft and sweet and reminds Geralt of a songbird.

“What do you want me to call you, kid?”

“Ciri.”

“You’re welcome, Ciri. You picked a good night to show up.”

“Why?”

“Not everyone’s as nice as me.” Geralt flashes a wolfish grin, then softens her expression. “And my girl’s singing tonight.”

“You have a girlfriend?” Her eyes are so damn wide.

“You didn’t wander in here by accident, did you?”

Ciri laughs, and Geralt feels like she’s about to do something stupid, like ask the kid what happened to her face, and if she has a place to stay.

Jaskier spares her by stepping on stage and neither of them dares break her spell by talking. The set flies by, and before she knows it, Jaskier is crossing the room to them, a cocktail in her hand. She drapes herself across Geralt’s broad back, grinning.

“Who’s this?” Jaskier asks.

“I’m Ciri.” She looks up, and her hair falls away from her face.

Jaskier gasps and comes around to perch on Geralt’s lap. She cups the girl’s face, running her fingers over the bruise. “What happened to your face, honey? Do you have a place to stay?”

Geralt snorts. Ciri starts and Jaskier pokes her in the side. “Hush, you.”

“I’m not laughing at you, I was going to ask her the same thing. Let me guess, ran away?”

Ciri tips her chin up defiantly. “I’m not going back.”

“Wasn’t asking you to.”

“She’s asking if you want to stay with us.”

Ciri looks between the two of them. “Are you really?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“Yes.”

Ciri sleeps on the couch in one of Geralt’s t-shirts. She didn’t say much on the walk back to Jaskier’s apartment, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off Geralt. Jaskier joked that she should perhaps feel jealous, and Ciri looked worried until Geralt laughed.

They’re curled together in bed and Jaskier is wondering whether she’d have made a terrible mother. Her own wasn’t exactly an example to follow and she’s only done marginally better but even in hindsight, she can’t see the path she should have taken clearly. Geralt pulls her tight against her chest and she’s confident she’s made at least one right decision. Knowing Ciri is in the other room feels like a second one.

"Do you regret choosing this life?" she asks.

"Didn't have much of a choice, between the person I am and the circumstances I was stuck with,” Geralt murmurs against her hair.

"I suppose I'm the same. If you could have chosen, then.” Jaskier rolls over to face her. “If you could be anything, what would you be?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought about it for a long time."

"Think about it?"

"I guess I'd do something outdoors, maybe work on a ranch." Geralt remembers her grandmother’s ranch. It was a good place, full of stories she wants to tell Jaskier one day. “What about you?”

"I'd be a singer."

"You are a singer."

"The kind of singer who doesn't need a day job. I have these dreams where I'm traveling the world, and I'm famous, but it's more like I’m respected." She grins. "I can't help but feel like you're supposed to be there too."

"I’d like to be. In my dreams, I wander and I protect people. Sometimes someone is with me, and I want to protect them most of all. I think it’s you." Geralt doesn't say that she'd dreamed of Jaskier long before she'd met her. She couldn’t have. Memory is imperfect.

Jaskier kisses her. “I hope I’m there with you,” she says against her lips. “It sounds lonely.”

Jaskier sleeps late and Geralt tucks the covers over her when she crawls out of bed. She finds Ciri in the bathroom the next morning, a pair of kitchen scissors in her hands. There’s a ring of gold hair on the tiles around her. She freezes when Geralt walks in, fear flashing across her face.

“I’ll clean it up, I’m sorry.”

Geralt holds out her hand, a gesture of peace. “It’s okay. Go sit at the table.”

She digs her clippers out of the cabinet and joins the kid. She holds them up. “These work better.”

Ciri nods. She tugs at the uneven bob she’s given herself.

“How short do you want it?”  
She hesitates, then sits up straight and says, “Short like a man’s.”

Geralt pulls a chair around behind her and sets to work. The clippers are warm and heavy in her hand, and Ciri seems lighter with every pass of the blade against her scalp. Jaskier emerges as they’re sweeping up. She kisses Geralt good morning and ruffles Ciri’s hair.

“I’m not sure I’ve woken up, two handsome ladies in my kitchen instead of one.” She leans against the counter and puts her hand to her forehead in a mock swoon. “I must be dreaming.”

Ciri laughs, and it’s the first thing she’s done that doesn’t have an edge of fear to it.

Jaskier gets home late. Ciri had gone to sleep not long before and Geralt had been waiting for her at the kitchen table. She isn’t sure when she’d started thinking of Jaskier’s apartment as home instead of her own. Jaskier is carrying her heels and there’s a limp to her step and a bruise forming on her cheek. Geralt waits until she’s closed the door and pulls her into a hug. They stand there for a long moment before Geralt takes her hand and leads her to the bathroom. The shower is the size of a shoebox, but they squeeze in together.

Under the hot water, Jaskier leans her head against her chest. “If you could change any one thing, what would it be?”

“I'd get you out of here. I'd take you to New York City and put you on the biggest stage there, show the whole world how brilliant you are.” Geralt’s hands map out the planes of Jaskier’s back, slow soothing strokes.

“You hate the city.”

Geralt shrugs. “What would you change?”

“I'd buy a ranch, way out in the country, and you could have a horse, and I'd sing for you, and we could just live.”

“You hate the country.”

“Maybe.” She looks up at her. “But I love you.”

Geralt presses their foreheads together. “I'm sorry I can't take you away from here, Jas.”

“I'm sorry too. But I’m glad I met you, and I’m glad we found Ciri.”

“Me too.”

“We can keep her, right?”

Geralt laughed, quietly but deep in her chest. “Yeah, we can keep her.”


End file.
